GrokSurf's San Diego

San Diego has been experiencing warmer weather already and summer isn’t even here yet. If you live on property that has landscaping, you’re probably going to use more water during the next few months.

So the City of San Diego released this timely news release to remind everyone that some of the water use restrictions in the city’s water use ordinance are permanent…drought or no drought.

One such permanent restriction dictates what time of day you may do outdoor watering.

The restricted hours vary a little depending on the season, but in a nutshell outdoor watering is permitted only in the early morning or late afternoon/evening. This law is intended to reduce water waste because a great deal of water is lost to evaporation when watering during the warmest hours of the day. Effective June 1, we’re now bound by the summer schedule specified in the ordinance.

I hope San Diego’s major news media will remind the city’s residents about this as well. Lately I’ve been seeing lawn sprinklers turned on at noon or even later during the warmest part of the afternoon. I’ve even seen lawns in city parks being watered during prohibited hours.

Some people seem to be unaware of the law prohibiting outdoor watering during the warmest time of the day (apparently including some employees at the Park and Recreation Dept.), or else they just don’t care.

Below is a copy of the official news release. If the text is too small for your eyes, you can expand the document to full-screen by clicking the rectangular button at the bottom right corner of the document window (don’t bother with the zoom [+] [-] tools, they won’t get you a full screen):